rtment in their humble dwelling, fenced off by
a little bit of partition from the outer door--and I could fain have
wished that they had two--but there was no choice of lodgings in the
village, and I had just to content myself, as the working man always
must in such circumstances, with the shelter I could get. My bed was
situated in the one end of the room, and my landlady's and her husband's
in the other, with the passage by which we entered between; but decent
old Peggy Russel had been accustomed to such arrangements all her life
long, and seemed never once to think of the matter; and--as she had
reached that period of life at which women of the humbler class assume
the characteristics of the other sex, somewhat, I suppose, on the
principle on which very ancient female birds put on male plumage--I in a
short time ceased to think of it also. It is not the less true, however,
that the purposes of decency demand that much should be done, especially
in the southern and midland districts of Scotland, for the dwellings of
the poor.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Uncle James would scarce have sanctioned, had he been consulted in
the matter, the use to which the carcase of his dead eagle was applied.
There lived in the place an eccentric, half-witted old woman, who, for
the small sum of one halfpenny, used to fall a-dancing on the street to
amuse children, and rejoiced in the euphonious though somewhat obscure
appellation of "Dribble Drone." Some young fellows, on seeing the eagle
divested of its skin, and looking remarkably clean and well-conditioned,
suggested that it should be sent to "Dribble;" and, accordingly, in the
character of a "great goose, the gift of a gentleman," it was landed at
her door. The gift was thankfully accepted. Dribble's cottage proved
odoriferous at dinner-time for the several following days; and when
asked, after a week had gone by, how she had relished the great goose
which the gentleman had seat, she replied, that it was "Unco sweet, but
oh! teuch, teuch!" For years after, the reply continued to be proverbial
in the place: and many a piece of over-hard stock-fish, and over-fresh
steak, used to be characterized as, "Like Dribble Drone's eagle, unco
sweet, but oh! teuch, teuch!"

[7] Well known as Gilfillan's song is among ourselves, it is much less
so to the south of the Border, and I present it to my English readers,
as a worthy representative, in these latter days, of those ludicrous
songs of our country i